


out here in the dust

by eclenic



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Intense Conversations, Morally ambiguous Lorca is back, Multi, Spoilers to 1x13, also possibly beyond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-14 10:49:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13588494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eclenic/pseuds/eclenic
Summary: Michael saves his life. It’s still not clear to her, weeks later, whether or not this was the right course of action.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly Lorca’s full heel turn in 1x13 really bothered me, but it did give me the idea for this. Sort of a fix-it, sort of just me really enjoying this pairing? Who knows, this is the first fic I’ve written and published in forever.
> 
> Canon right up to the point where Lorca gets his ass booted into the spore core. Will incorporate some things from 1x14 and possibly 1x15 as time goes on, so consider the whole series fair game. 
> 
>  
> 
> Unbeta’d. I’m just having some fun.

She saves him. It’s What They Do.

They arrive back on Discovery’s holodeck with the knife still in his chest and the Emperor’s look of disgust hot on her skin. She wouldn’t come with them.

————

Improbably, he survives. Michael refuses to leave sick bay until they assure her that he’ll live, and she’s not sure if she’s relieved or disappointed.

When he wakes, hours or days later, the first thing he feels isn’t the hole in his chest; it’s the shackles holding him to the bed.

That answers that question.

He smiles to himself, and a sharp pain runs through his chest where they stitched him back together. It is, at least, something to remember them by.

The second thing he notices is Ash Tyler - unconscious, also chained to his bed. Of course. That was a detail that had passed him by in the moment - one he’d felt sure he would never have to deal with.

When they move him to the brig, they put Ash in the cell directly across from him.

He wonders which of them she’ll come for first.

————

The days in here are marked artificially, light and dark and then light again. It’s always the same on a starship, disorienting and anchorless. It’s particularly bad in the windowless brig. He’s not sure how long it’s been, but he realises they’re not heading to dock.

(Incidentally - he knows, for a fact, that they are turning the lights on a little quicker and brighter than usual, just for him.)

When she comes, it’s with Saru, and the two of them resolutely ignore both him and Tyler. They’re here to speak to the Klingon.

This is how he learns they lost the war.

They want tactics, battle plans, anything she can give them. L’Rell laughs in their faces.

“This is still _my ship_!” He yells after them, and watches their steps falter, just briefly, just for a half-step. Then they’re gone.

————

Saru lets Michael keep all the logs from over there, and all she does is read them, over and over, and wonder how on earth this ever happened.

They’re piecing it together, little by little - how the war was lost. Not surprisingly, the mirror Discovery features prominently in the narrative. It makes her queasy to think how it must have gone down.

Twenty percent of Federation space, gone. The rest in tatters. Hundreds of millions of lives.

Their fault. His.

And yet, there’s still something there, still one tiny ember of loyalty that won’t go out no matter how she tries to smother it.

She wants to understand.

————

She doesn’t tell Saru, or anyone. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. She sneaks on to the brig just as the night shifts change, when most of the ship is asleep. He’s not, though - she checked, before she even left quarters - waited for Tilly’s snores to begin before whispering her commands to the computer. _Show him to me_.

He sees her, and the smile spreads across his face like a sunrise.

“Hi, Ash.”

“Michael.” The way her name rolls over his tongue is almost...reverent, and she can’t catch herself before it hits her. She flinches, moves away, and his eyes darken momentarily.

“How are you?”

“Good,” he says, and she can tell he wants to believe it. “I feel...different. Better.”

She remembers him - the Klingon - from the Binary Stars. Voq. She looks for a moment, tries to see if she can find him in the line of Tyler’s shoulders, the angle of his brow.

It doesn’t seem possible. But it is. On that front, L’Rell was only too happy to provide details. She thinks of the medical report they let her read. _From advanced testing, it is clear that Lieutenant Tyler’s body is not entirely human. However, crucially, it is also not entirely Klingon. There is a balance to be found._

“Michael?”

“Yes?”

“I just...however this goes down...what we said over there - that’s still true. I still mean it.”

“I know.” She smiles sadly at him.

“They told me...about Culber.” Tyler’s still standing there, looking at his hands as if they don’t belong to him. She supposes in lots of ways, they don’t. “I don’t even remember doing it.”

She doesn’t know how to respond. She tries, instinctively, to reach for him, and only stops right before her fingers hit the force field. “It would have been quick,” she says, and it’s not the right thing - the aghast expression on his face tells her that - but it’s all she’s got. “He wouldn’t have suffered.”

He says nothing for a long moment.

“At least when this is all over we’re both going to the same place,” he says. “Maybe they’ll put our cells next to each other.”

She lets him have the fantasy.

Behind them, Lorca scoffs.

  
————

The next time she and Saru try to convince L'Rell to cooperate, Tyler’s cell is empty - save for the blood on the walls. Saru leaves, their mission unfilled again, and she rounds on Lorca, though she doesn’t know what she’s accusing him of.

“We had a visit from Lieutenant Tyler’s Klingon friend.”

  
The look he gives her is so smug, and anger flashes through her before she tamps it down. He wants a reaction from her; she determines not to give him one. Full Vulcan training - careful, neutral, apathetic.

“You seem well.”

He shrugs. That little smile that seems to perpetually line his face is still there; he has the bemusement of a man who fully believes his situation is temporary. “I’m in a cage, Michael. I’ve been better.”

“You should make yourself comfortable,” she says, carefully skirting past his use of her name. "You'll be here a long time."

That smile again.

"Oh, I doubt that. I've committed no crimes in this universe. Every action I've taken has been in service of winning this war. Hell, you can ask the admirals yourself, if any of them are still alive. After Pahvo, they wanted to give me a medal. I'm the rightful captain of this ship."

He pauses, for effect, like the dramatic bastard he is.

"You really want to be part of another mutiny, Michael?"

————

"We can't let him out."

That's Saru, and Tilly, and Stamets, in unison.

"I _know_." Michael says. "But he's not wrong. We can't hold him forever. And I believe he is...sincere, in his desire to help Starfleet."

Saru looks at her. Kelpiens can be difficult to read - useful, as a prey species - but not now. Now, the disbelief is evident. “Why would that be true, given his...background?”

“I don’t know.” Lorca is a moving target, his words curling like smoke into whatever shape he thinks he needs. He cannot be trusted, clearly. But she desperately wants to. “Perhaps he thinks he’s stuck here now.”

That seems most likely, over and above any sort of altruism. The three of them nod.

“Speak with him,” Saru tells her. “He has a connection to you, clearly. If he can be of use, we can discuss alternative options for his confinement.”

She nods her agreement, even as Tilly and Stamets start to protest. Saru dismisses then both, so it’s just the two of them.

“I know it isn’t very Starfleet of me,” he says, low and confessional, “but I sometimes wonder if wouldn’t have been better if you’d simply left him there.”

————

She follows her orders. And she realises, as soon as she takes a seat in front of him, that this is exactly what he wanted.

"You got me," she says. "I'm here."

"It's good to see you, Michael."

  
It all seems so achingly familiar - except last time, she was the one in the cell.

"Let me guess," he says, "Lieutenant Stamets has finally finished his calculations and figured out that Discovery can't go back in time, as the resulting paradoxes would rip space-time apart like yesterday's newspaper. The Klingons are in charge of what, maybe thirty percent of Federation space?"

He looks at her, waiting for her to confirm.

"Twenty," she replies, and she thinks it actually, physically hurts.

"Eh, that's better than I expected. Traditional tactics have failed, and we're going to lose. Is Katrina here yet?"

Michael stops for a moment. Admiral Cornwell has been and gone, for now. He can't know all this. That's a word she thinks she'll need to retire soon.

He sees the bewildered look on her face.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Michael? This is my ship. There's very little I don't know."

————

Michael turns it into part of her routine - visiting him. She thinks of it in the same way she did visiting the Vulcan medics as a child - unpleasant, impersonal, but ultimately necessary.

You have to clean a wound before it will heal.

She keeps it to business, or tries to - suggested tactics, targets, retaliatory strikes. She doesn't ask.

She wants to.

She does.

He's still in his cell, still sharing the brig with Tyler and L'Rell. It's hardly the best place for conversation, but it will have to do.

She waits until he's done looking at the plans they've drawn up, _hmmm_ ing and frowning his way through them. At this point, normally, she would give him a curt nod and be on her way. Some days, she doesn't speak to him at all.

"What you did, over there..."

Lorca's entire body relaxes minutely, momentarily. He smiles at her like she's told him a secret.

Maybe she has.

"I wondered when you were going to ask."

They both remember the words she used to describe the Terrans. _Racist_. _Fascistic_. _Xenophobic_. How he'd played right into the stereotype. She had thought he was better than that. Hoped.

"I'm asking now."

"I won't pretend I was a saint. I'm not."

"But?"

He holds back on the obvious retort. _Who says there's a but?_ They have done well, sending her to him. Even as they marvel at how well he pushes their buttons, they push right back.

"When Georgiou became Emperor - by, incidentally, murdering the last emperor, who happened to be her husband - she surrounded herself with hard-liners. I think she wanted to seem tougher than she actually was. I knew if I wanted to have a half a chance of actually beating her, of getting out alive, I had to get them on-side. I'd have said anything."

She's not sure if that's better, really.

He must see her disappointment, because he continues. "What's right for my universe and what's right for yours aren't going to be the same thing. We lived through centuries of war. The Federation? It would never have worked there."

"I'm a product of my circumstances, Michael, just like you are of yours."

She raises an eyebrow. "Why bother, then? Why overthrow her if you weren't going to change anything?"

She expects a Terran answer. She expects him to say _power_ , or _prestige_ , or _because I could_.

Gabriel Lorca is not done surprising her.

His face softens.

"My mother was the Emperor's sister."

He takes her silence (stunned, mostly) as the invitation that it is.

“This was before Georgiou, of course, and that fool of a husband she had. My aunt, I suppose you’d call her, had no heirs of her own, so I was seen as her most likely successor. I was trained, schooled, however you want to call it, as heir to the throne. And then they killed my mother, and the Emperor, and I knew I’d have to fight for it. Took me twenty years.”

“So you see now, don’t you, Michael? It was always supposed to be _mine_.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the kudos/comments!

“Burnham?”

She looks up; she’s grown so used to him using her first name, now, that the formality surprises her.

“Yes?”

“I don’t think I ever thanked you. For saving my life.”

“I...you’re welcome, I suppose.”

He laughs, and it comes out hollow. His fingers move to his chest, to the place where the scar must be.

“You should have left me there.”

————

Later, in their quarters, Tilly tosses and turns in her bunk, clearly not sleeping.

Michael doesn’t sleep much.

“Whatever it is, say it,” she says, without moving, her eyes trained on the stars outside the window.

“It’s nothing.” A pause. “I just...are you okay? We barely see you in engineering, or the mess hall, or...anywhere, really.”

“Did Saru ask you to check on me?”

“No! Well, yes. But I was going to anyway.”

“I’m fine, Tilly.”

“How is...he?”

Honestly, even Tilly doesn’t know if she’s talking about Lorca or Ash.

Michael answers, and it feels like she’s showing her hand.

“Sometimes, he says things, and it’s like he’s still the captain. And sometimes I wonder how we could ever have thought he was one of us. I can never tell if he means what he’s saying, or if he just thinks it sounds good.”

“That sounds really difficult.”

“It’s not,” Michael replies. “It’s impossible.”

“Do you ever regret it? Bringing him back?”

Michael is silent for a long time, so much so that Tilly turns away and attempts sleep once more.

Then, her answer - quiet, another admission.

“No.”

————

She had told him, once, the same thing she had told Tilly - how every word out of his mouth branched off into a thousand different possibilities. How she could never tell what was genuine and what wasn’t.

He hadn’t bothered to try and convince her either way, just smiled that smile of his.

————

Michael knows there are rumours, of course. It’s not a big ship. Each time she emerges from the brig, there’s a new story. It’s understandable, she supposes, given her history - here and there.

Still, it’s like being a child on Vulcan again, and a feeling she thought she had left well behind.

It’s the same as when she first arrived - whispers that stop when she passes, conversations that change direction when she joins. She catches fragments of it, names and supposed deeds and stories she feels sure she’d remember if they were true.

 _You should be above such things_ , Sarek tells her, and she’s not sure whether he means the gossip, or its content.

————

Here is the truth of it: it had happened. Once.

(This was long ago, _before_ , when her name was still a curse on people’s lips and he’d looked at her like she was the answer to every question he’d ever asked.)

He had understood, so she thought, what it meant to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. It was why she had decided to stay. And why, later, when he’d moved closer, she’d let him.

The rest is lost in a haze of hastily shucked clothing and long, fluid movements, of her hands against his skin and his lips whispering her name against her neck.

 _Michael_.

She thinks that's why he does it - the casual, languid way he uses her name when they sit together. It throws her off-balance, for one, but it also ties them together in her mind. The captain and the prisoner. The lover and the enemy.

(She gives him entirely too much credit. He does it because he likes the way it sounds in his mouth, nothing more.)

(Also, every time he does it, Tyler gives him a look that could cut glass, and he has so few other amusements in here.)

————

Admiral Cornwell arrives again, and from her sour mood Michael expects to hear that things are worse now than ever.

That isn’t it, though. It’s working - they’re winning.

Michael is confused until she isn’t.

 _He’s_ winning.

————

"This is a science vessel, not a prison ship!"

This is the point of the conversation where Michael enters.

"This ship will be whatever it needs to be until the war is over, Saru. We don't have anywhere to put them."

Saru huffs. "I have three prisoners on this ship, Admiral. It's three more than I'd like. _Discovery's_ resources are already stretched."

"The Klingon is a prisoner of war. We follow protocol. She stays where she is." Cornwell sighs, and for a brief moment, she lets the war show on her face. "I have about as much idea how to deal with the other two as you do, Captain."

He is still only Acting Captain, he knows, but Saru can't help but straighten a little each time he's called that. He likes it.

"Burnham?"

"Sir?"

"What is your assessment of Lieutenant Tyler's condition?"

She frowns. They've been doing a lot of that, she thinks - frowning and sighing and shrugging, a sort of unofficial language of war.

"He seems more stable. The doctors say he has full access to the Klingon's memories now, after the initial struggles."

"This is the man who murdered your medical officer? The Klingon?" Cornwell asks, but there's surprisingly little judgement in it. "I remember him."

Saru nods. "Lieutenant Tyler will need to face a court-martial at some point, to be sure," he says. "But I think...on _Discovery_ , we have shown more capacity for, uh, _nuance_."

He looks at Michael, his point driven home. She should, by rights, be in the cells along with the rest of them.

"You want to put him back on duty?"

"I want fewer prisoners on the ship. The Lieutenant is the only one who can be safely released. Assuming Specialist Burnham agrees."

 _Safely_. That word hangs in the air a moment longer than the rest. They all hope he won't come to regret it.

Michael swallows down the bright, hot bead of panic that hits her, and nods.

"Okay then," says Cornwell, seemingly satisfied. "You can consider this Starfleet granting him bail."

"Was that everything, Captain?"

"For now. Thank you, Specialist."

They wait, politely quiet, for her to leave, and it doesn't take much to know they want to talk about her.

"Show me," says Cornwell, when she's gone. Saru obliges and passes her a datapad.

"This was from yesterday."

Familiar voices fill the room.

_"Did you kill her?"_

_"Does it matter, Michael? She's dead, either way."_

_“Did you love her?”_

She rubs a hand over her face, and passes him back the pad.

“You need to tell me if we need to pull her out of there."

“Specialist Burnham has been instrumental in securing Lorca’s cooperation.” Saru sighs. “We’ve tried sending others. He won’t talk to anyone but her.”

“I understand. We need his intel. But this," she gestures at the pad, "is the opposite of what we need. Starfleet is still responsible for her."

Saru takes a moment, pondering the many meanings of that word. _Responsible_.

"Michael has always bonded strongly to her captains, Admiral. But her loyalty to Starfleet is not in question."

Cornwell actually laughs. "We're still talking about the mutineer, right?"

————

When they tell Tyler he can leave the brig, he thinks they're joking. He's spent the last god-knows how long preparing himself to live out his days in ten foot square of space - even the open space of the brig, outside his cell, seems massive.

Michael didn't come.

He walks out, his uniform uncomfortably close to his skin, and looks back only momentarily.

Lorca, still slouched in his cell, gives him a look, and Tyler can't tell if he's jealous or somehow, strangely, victorious.

————

“Come on, Michael. I’m not asking to sit in the chair again. A walk.”

This has been a near-constant refrain for the last week.

 _I think he’s testing me_ , she had told Saru.

 _Feel free to test him back_ had been the reply. _Just don’t let him escape._

She taps on the panel and a foot-wide hole appears in the containment field. He lets her handcuff him without a word. Another tap, and the field disappears entirely.

“Twice around the deck,” she says, and it’s an offer, a tiny outstretched morsel of trust. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.”

————

Michael has done her homework, knows all the cracks and crevices on this deck where he might try to slip away.

So when he stops, in the singular camera and sensor blind spot on the whole deck, she’s not even surprised.

“What?” He says, with a conspiratorial smirk. “Now we can actually _talk_.”

She’s bemused, and slightly terrified, at the idea that everything so far has been him holding back.

“Not planning your escape?”

He shakes his head. “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

“I thought you were supposed to be running an empire.”

It’s a low blow, and he flinches - one of the few signs he ever gives that something is getting to him.

“You believe in destiny, Michael?” he asks, and he knows she doesn’t. The other her didn’t, either.

“Not particularly.”

“I thought I knew what my destiny was. Now I think it’s something different.”

“That seems....convenient.”

“Eh, maybe. Keeps things interesting, though.”

This is exactly what she had meant, when Tilly asked. Right here, in this moment - the way he shrugs and tilts his head - all she sees is the man that was her captain.

“I...” she starts, but she’s interrupted by the sudden appearance of Tyler and two other guards, phasers up, from around the corner.

“Ash?”

The relief on his face is palpable, but it drains away quickly. He lowers the phaser but doesn’t put it away.

“You disappeared from the sensors.” He says, weakly. “I thought...”

“We’re _fine_ ,” she says. “You can go.”

He does, but not before shooting several long, unhappy glances back towards them.

Michael feels the tightness start to leave her chest only gradually. She looks back at Lorca and it clicks.

He’s _counting_. Checking their response time, probing for weaknesses.

“Three minutes fourteen seconds,” he offers, without any sort of denial.

She rolls her eyes, and they continue walking.

By the time she gets back to the bridge, Saru has already ordered security to speed up.

————

“Thank you,” she says, on one of these walks, “for not bringing up the other thing.”

“Why, Specialist Burnham, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

His voice doesn’t change, and neither looks at the other, but she can feel the heat of his smile anyway.

————

**Author's Note:**

> Ayyy, I have no idea where I’m going with this. Let’s find out!


End file.
